“The ability to mentor and share knowledge is crucial to the growth and development of our nation’s students,” said Paul Fowler, director of Supply Management, Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne. “Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne is honored to be part of a program that will help young people maximize their potential and become leaders in their chosen professions after college.”

The NASA Mentor-Protégé program encourages prime contractors to help Historically Black Colleges or Universities as well as the small business community enhance their technical and business capabilities to better compete for contracts and subcontracts. It also helps educational institutions and small business foster long-term business relationships with NASA prime contractors, and increases the number of businesses that receive NASA contract and subcontract awards.

The Mentor-Protégé Agreement with Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne is administered through NASA headquarters and sponsored by NASA Marshall Space Flight Center. As part of the two-year agreement, Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne will mentor Alabama A&M University students and provide business and technical development; workforce readiness workshops; job search and career education advice; job shadowing; lecture series; engineering-knowledge transfer opportunities and other career-readiness activities.

Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne, a part of Pratt & Whitney, is a preferred provider of high-value propulsion, power, energy and innovative system solutions used in a wide variety of government and commercial applications, including engines for launch vehicles, missile defense systems and advanced hypersonic engines. Behind its successful designs, manufacturing processes, and hardware are Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne’s research and development engineers, who solve tough problems in extreme environments. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

About Pratt & Whitney

Pratt & Whitney is a world leader in the design, manufacture and service of aircraft engines, space propulsion systems and industrial gas turbines. United Technologies, based in Hartford, Conn., is a diversified company providing high technology products and services to the global aerospace and commercial building industries.